r/DotA2•9 yr. ago

Semi-daily hero tips. Day 110: Witch Doctor

Tip

DISCLAIMER

A lot of you probably know about the weekly hero discussion, but that often ends up in a meta discussion (whether or not the hero needs buffs, etc) or a meme war than actual tips to play, itemize and build the hero.

This is what I'd like to do. Please discuss any notes I made and possible improvements while also giving tips of your own if you have them.

The roles, skill builds and item builds, as well as a lot of the notes are my opinion on matters and should not be seen as a must do or don't. Also remember that almost every single build or role is situationally possible.

A lot of the tips on heroes were also mentioned in tsunami's amazing hero tips series he did over the last couple of years.

Witch Doctor

Notes:

When you start channeling, select your death ward and right click your target or ctrl click him
You can actively choose the targets which get attacked by Witch doctor's Ward, thus you could also deny yourself with it.
Use your ult when the enemy stuns are generally gone or you have BKB or at least glimmer if they don't have AOE stuns
If you can, cast your death ward from the high ground or trees. Aether lens helps to do this
Lvl your heal once in the early levels, it has the highest heal/mana point in the game
If there are only 2 enemies you can chainstun them each for 4 seconds with maxed cask
Maledict is incredibly good throughout the game if you can land it. This alone makes eul's viable
Friends: Void (place your ult outside the chrono though!), Dazzle (physical damage ult on WD, double heals), Treant (teamfight combo, double heals)
Good versus: Centaur, Axe, Underlord, Tiny, CM, Bara (maledict, cask and ult make it incredibly hard for them to get their spells/blink off. They also have very low armor vs your ult)
Counters: Brood, PL, Weaver, Clinkz, Puck (You can barely hit him with any spell because of his speed and/or too many units), Void (bashes easily cancel your ult), PA, Brew, Windranger (evasion withstands your physical ult), Sniper (is too far away for you to reach him), AA (heal cancel, cold feet on your ult), Visage, Warlock, Magnus (ult cancel)
Cask stuns creeps and illusions for 5 seconds.
Cask can bounce to units in the fog.
You can toggle your heal while channeling.
You can self glimmer and shadow blade while channeling.

Role: support

Item build: Arcanes, (Aether Lens,) Glimmer (, Force staff, Eul's, ghost scepter, solar crest), Agh's (, BKB, Sheep)

Skill build: Cask <-> Maledict --> Heal

PREVIOUS HEROES

Posted Aug 23, 2017, 12:16 PM UTC · edited

2016